


tear me apart (but don't let go)

by jdphoenix



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Arranged Marriage, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-27
Updated: 2016-10-27
Packaged: 2018-08-27 07:22:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8392408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/pseuds/jdphoenix
Summary: Jemma expects anger.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Originally I had planned on posting part two of this at the same time as part one, but as this has been done for over a month and part two refuses to materialize, I figure I should get it posted before I forget it exists at all. And hopefully this will inspire me to finish it up.
> 
> Title from Niykee Heaton's "infinity."

Jemma expected this, the quiet anger that turns the lift ride up to their room into a journey across icy tundra. In fact, she expects a great deal worse when they arrive and has a new model miniature ICER hidden in her garter as a precaution. She keeps her eyes fixed ahead on the gold, mirrored doors. Her reflection is warped and discolored so badly she can pretend this isn’t happening, this is some other woman’s life, and the truth is she’s heading up to her lab where Fitz will complain about her adjustments to the Hemera formula and it will be just another day.

Only it isn’t. It’s evening and growing darker by the second and when she steps out of that lift and into the hallway, she doesn’t do it alone.

Ward moves ahead of her to open the door to their room but doesn’t enter. He’s blocking half the doorway so she can’t move forward without either shoving him in first or scraping along the edge of the door frame.

“Is something wrong?” she asks, worried he’s sensed some threat.

There’s a wickedness in his eyes when he turns, but his face is still set in those lines of annoyance he’s been wearing ever since he first saw her standing beside him.

All at once, faster than she can hope to track even while she’s in the middle of it, he’s got her in his arms. “Tradition, right?” he asks and steps over the threshold.

Something in her chest _thunks_ and, at the sound of the door swinging shut behind them, she imagines it’s something like a lock. She’s trapped herself in this and there really is no escaping.

He sets her on her feet and her hands - traitorous, foolish things - rest shakily on the lapels of his jacket. He catches one, holding it still, while his free hand remains at her side, his fingers gently twisted in the fabric of her skirt.

She wonders if he’s going to kiss her again. If it will be the way it was downstairs. Before, his fingers dug into her carefully coiffed hair - it must be ruined now, though she hasn’t had the opportunity to look - and his body was hard against hers as he took and took and gave only anger. It wasn’t the gentle kiss she always imagined on this day, but then he isn’t at all the man she imagined sharing it with. Nonetheless, her nerves have been buzzing ever since he ended the kiss to drag her back up the aisle.

“Still afraid of heights?” he asks, his voice low and rough.

“It was only a few feet,” she mutters, but her body shifts towards the door, away from the impressive view their room affords.

He grunts in displeasure and leaves so suddenly that she stumbles. She’s left cold and confused as he strides across the room. He jerks the curtains closed, blocking the view of the city turned to liquid gold beneath the setting sun. She’s grateful. She has no idea what to do with the emotion.

And neither does he, apparently. He stares, and she can’t blame him. She must be quite a sight in her white dress - worse than him in his tux, surely.

She swallows and looks away first, which is a mistake as it means she sees the bed strewn with rose petals. Her stomach drops.

“Honeymoon suite,” he says wryly. He tugs at his tie, but his attention seems to be on her.

She thinks of the ICER in her garter, wonders if she’ll need it.

The thin length of fabric comes away from his neck and he hastily wraps it around his hand. “Turn around,” he orders. “Let’s get you out of that.”

Fear lightnings through her. She knew, naturally, that they would…

Even in her thoughts she can only make a frustrated noise to express where this night is headed.

She turns, as ordered, and is keenly aware of his heat bleeding through the delicate fabric when he steps up behind her. _Close your eyes and think of England_ , she reminds herself sternly as he drags the zipper down. But that only reminds her of her earlier conversation with Hunter and Bobbi.

“You’ll be fine,” Bobbi said while putting the finishing touches on her hair. “He can’t hurt you, otherwise what’s the point of any of this?”

Hunter scoffed loudly from the door.

“I’ll be fine,” Jemma said, “I’ll just close my eyes and think of England.” It seemed so much simpler then, with Ward far away and her friends around her.

“No,” Hunter said sternly, “you’ll scream. He hurts you - hell, he even _touches_ you - you scream, and I’ll come in and blow his bloody head off, peace treaty or no.”

She doesn’t know where Hunter’s hiding. The most logical place is a room next to theirs; it would have been nothing to reserve one under a false name weeks ago. But it is Hunter after all, and she has the absurd thought he’s hanging from the side of the building, monitoring the vibrations in the windowpane to see if she makes any sign of distress.

She nearly laughs at the image, but then her dress slides from her shoulders and pools at her feet, leaving her in nothing but her bra and slip to face Ward. She’s never seen him look the way he does now, his dark eyes fixed on her. She has, however, seen that rage. He’s still angry.

Her fingers tap at her outer thigh, inches above the ICER. If she thinks he’ll hurt her for her deception, she won’t scream and risk Hunter’s life, she’ll stop him herself.

A shudder goes through him and he swallows before saying, “I’m gonna take a shower.” He steps around her, again leaving her confused and unsteady. Before she can turn to look after him, he’s closed the bathroom door.

Does he expect her to wait? Get ready for … for what they’re here to do? She sits on the edge of the bed and crumples a handful of rose petals, letting them drop through her fingers.

She isn’t prepared for this indecision. She’s spent weeks working towards the vows they said downstairs. Now that they’re done, the rest of her life stretches out before her in a haze.

 

 

+++++

 

 

The floor shudders beneath Jemma’s feet and dust falls from the door frame as she ducks into Coulson’s office. He meets her eyes and, though the worried lines of his face don’t lessen, there’s a smile buried in there.

“We’ll talk transfer procedures in a minute,” he says. Skye’s far more powerful than they anticipated, she’ll need to be moved to the Cocoon at the earliest opportunity - preferably before she damages the Playground’s foundations. “I’m working on how to tell Ward the wedding’s off without starting a war.” His chair squeaks as he sits back, turning to May, who’s hovering by the windows. “How does, ‘You’re going to die alone, you rat bastard,’ sound as an opener?”

“Accurate,” May says, “but maybe a little incendiary.”

Coulson shrugs like the potential start of World War Three is a middling concern and sets his drafted letter aside to focus on Jemma. “How’s she doing?” His smile’s bigger now.

Guilt claws at Jemma’s chest. Coulson may be over the moon that Skye’s transition means she’s no longer able, according to the terms of the peace treaty, to marry Ward, but he shouldn’t be. For one, Jemma convinced Skye to do it. It was dangerous and potentially - very minutely, but the potential was there - more traumatic than marrying Ward would have been, and Jemma broke at least a dozen protocols doing it. For another, Jemma’s not here about Skye.

“Fine,” she says, “but I came to talk about the treaty.”

May gives Coulson a look, the kind that would have many of the lower level agents wetting themselves in terror. Coulson only goes on smiling. Jemma’s guilt sharpens.

“It doesn’t have to be abandoned,” she says swiftly.

Now May’s look is for Jemma, but it’s more pitying than deadly.

“I don’t think Ward will agree,” Coulson says, sounding happier than he should about that.

Jemma smooths her hands over her thighs, wishing there was an easier way to say this. “The agreement didn’t specify Skye by name-”

“No, but it’s not like we have anyone else who fulfills the parameters. Ward made sure of that.”

He did. The contract drawn up - marrying one of SHIELD’s agents to one of HYDRA’s in an effort to at least slow the frequency of attacks between the two - was carefully crafted to ensure that only Skye would fit Ward’s conditions for a wife. He pretended they were HYDRA’s conditions - the frequent citing of her relationship to Coulson made that clear - but they all knew it was him pulling those strings. He saw a way to get her and he took it.

“Actually,” Jemma says, “we do.” She meets Coulson’s eyes squarely, trusting him to connect the dots she can’t bring herself to.

May recovers first. “No,” she says, stepping forward. “You are _not_ -”

“We have no choice,” Jemma cuts in swiftly. “The peace treaty took _two years_ to build, we can’t let it fall apart now if there’s any way to salvage it.” Those are Coulson’s words, used to soften the blow when they all finally realized the trap Ward had lured them into - lured Skye into. Coulson recognizes them too. His smile is gone and he looks as though she’s slapped him. The guilt digs its claws in deeper.

“I fulfill all the requirements,” she goes on. The only clause that firmly put her out of the running is worded in such a way that her parents’ deaths last year counts as well as Skye’s alienation from hers.

“You planned this,” Coulson says softly. “When you convinced Skye to transition, you knew you’d take her place.”

Jemma doesn’t bother to confirm what they both know is the truth.

“Simmons,” May says, stepping closer, “you know what you’re saying.”

“That I’m going to marry Grant Ward, yes. It’s not ideal, but I think we can all agree I’ll be in a better position than Skye would have been. He doesn’t- doesn’t want me.” She doesn’t know why she stumbles over the words. It’s not as though she didn’t know, even when Ward was masquerading as a loyal SHIELD agent and they lived together on the Bus, that he wasn’t interested. But now that Ward’s become the man she’ll marry, the reality of it hurts more than her hopeless crush ever did.

“They won’t be happy about this,” Coulson says. “A change this late in the game.”

Jemma shrugs. “It’s not as though we’ve told them it will be Skye. Ward’s assumed, and I doubt anyone higher than him will truly care.”

 

 

+++++

 

 

Jemma’s startled out of her recollections by a sudden bang from the bathroom. It’s not loud enough to be a body slipping on the tile, so she decides to ignore it unless it happens again.

It does serve to spur her to her feet though. Her bag, the one set aside just for today, was brought up during the ceremony. She pulls her negligee - no one will be able to say she isn’t fulfilling her obligations - from inside with shaking hands.

She was right about no one caring. In fact, at least one of the heads who was in attendance today appeared pleased to see Ward trapped into marriage with the wrong woman. She attempts to be happy about it too, but can’t quite manage. The pleasure of knowing her enemy’s been trapped by his own trap is rather ruined what with her being in it with him.

She undresses carefully and hides the ICER beneath one of the pillows so that it will be in easy reach should anything happen. In doing so, she discovers the bottle of champagne she’d previously missed due to its proximity to the open window. With nothing else to occupy her time but worry, she goes ahead and opens it.

By the time Ward emerges from the bathroom, her nerves have somewhat settled. An effect that is largely undone when she sees him standing there in only a towel, the bed lying between them.

His eyes rake over her, that same inscrutable darkness in them. He walks away, and she’s forced to wonder if it will always be this way. Will she be forever trying to find her balance in her new life?

She wishes that they could just get this over with and seriously considers pulling off the thin bit of fabric she wears just to see it done. But of course he must be ready by now. He’s put it off as long as he can.

Which is an odd thought. She knows Ward doesn’t want her, but she’s always expect him to- well, to demand his due, she supposes. She’d be rather put out if her wedding had gone the way his has and the lack of sex at the end, while not the primary concern, would be an added insult. One that a man of Ward’s skills is more than capable of remedying, whether she likes it or not.

His back to her, he drops the towel and pulls on a pair of boxers. Before she has time to wonder over that, he’s back at the bed, pulling the covers down and climbing in while rose petals rain down.

“Are you coming?” he asks.

Right. Yes. In the bed. That’s … right.

She sets her glass aside - the shaking’s back, that’s a bad sign - and climbs in beside him. She’s just considering whether she’d be better off moving towards the middle when he rolls away and turns off the light. He doesn’t roll back and she’s left with only her own thoughts in the dark.

 


End file.
